The reason lefty 1B are preferred and most 3B are righty is that you want to wear the glove on the hand furthest away from the bag. Carp is a lefty. His glove hand will hamper him.
He'll also have ~70% of the hot-shots at him, since most of those hard hits are pulled and 70% of the batters are righty. That's the reason it's the hot corner.
And diving, then recovering and throwing to first is different than diving, then getting up and jogging to the bag. A lot of things can go wrong in that throw.
Could Carp do it? Sure, he COULD do it. Has he ever in his career played 3B? Well yes...for 12 games, in rookie ball, when they're moving guys just to get everyone the chance for some ABs and defense is incidental to the process.
Do I think the Mariners, who lived and breathed the idiom that a run saved equals a run scored to the point that they fielded the worst offensive team of the DH era, are willing to forego defense to that degree?
I don't.
It'd solve our offensive problem at 3B though, assuming mistakes in the field didn't get into Carp's head.
~G
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